Lancet editor Richard Horton today told The Guardian newspaper that the panel's ruling left no doubt the 1998 study had to be pulled. "It was utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false," Horton told The Guardian. "I feel I was deceived."

Wakefield and two colleagues are under review and face losing their license to practice medicine in Britain.

Despite all of this evidence, autism spectrum disorder cases are still on the rise—it now affects 1 in 100 children; and there are an estimated 673,000 kids with autism in the U.S. now. Over the past decade, autism has made a steady climb from obscure syndrome to what seems like a pervasive developmental disorder.

Researchers agree that autism is largely genetic, but evidence also points to "triggers" in the prenatal environment that may help experts decode the disorder. But there is some hope for parents: Experts who specialize in autism say some warning signs in affected children are apparent before age 1. They say early intervention can help them recognize clues to the syndrome in high-risk babies as young as 3 months or 4 months old.